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Using Diigo in Class

There are so many classroom applications for Diigo, mostly because it has so many features and these features can be used to create a myriad of classroom experiences.

Bookmarking

The core feature of Diigo is it's ability to bookmark websites and centralise these in the cloud. This means that your bookmarks are available from any device with Internet access.  Put simply, Diigo is the best way to gather and organise your online resources. All the sites you have bookmarked are added to your Diigo Account, along with a description and any tags you add. The description and tags are used for searching in your account.

This video shows you basics of using Diigo.

To see an example of using Diigo in class, check out my Lesson: Researching Sacred Stories post.

Annotating

Diigo goes beyond merely bookmarking a site. Diigo, also enables you to highlight web pages, and comment on them. These highlights and comments are also collated into you account where you can view them. This way you can view all the notes you have collected from each website.

Groups

Groups are a powerful organising and collaboration tool. Groups can be private or public to allow for many users to collaboratively build a library of online resources. There are different levels of collaboration, allowing you to decide the level of participation for different group members.

Lists

Lists are Diigo's tool for displaying your bookmarks. You can send bookmarks to a list that you can then share to different platforms. Lists are only only for display purposes, but are a simple way to embed an up-datable sources of bookmarks.

Educators Account

Diigo also offers a free educator account. This account gives you access to a teacher console where you can create accounts for your students and allocated them to groups.

Mobile Apps

Finally Diigo has apps for both Android and iOS. This means that you, or students can use Diigo's features on your phones or tablets.

Getting Started

To get started with Diigo, go to the website an create an account. You can use Google, Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo accounts, or create an account using your email address. Once you have created your account, then it is time to start bookmarking.

The easiest way to bookmark in Diigo is to install either Diigolet, or the Diigo Extension in your browser. The tools can be found here. There is a tool available for every browser.

Collaborative Research Tools

Collaborative research allows the class to assist each other in finding sources. It also make life a little easier on the teacher, as you now have 30 people scouring the web looking for resources instead of one. Not that this makes you redundant. Students will still need to be show the best way to search, and how to critique their sources. Here I have included a number of eLearning tools which can facilitate collaborative research.

Diigo

Diigo is the first tool I turn to for collaborative research. It is one of the kings of social book-marking and offers some fantastic features. Diigo can be accessed using Google, Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo accounts, or you can create you own Diigo account. It also offers free educators accounts, which allow you to automatically set up student accounts and classes.

When I use Diigo, I create a Library for that topic and then add my students to that library (made easier by the education accounts). Students then research the topic and add bookmarks to the library.

Diigo also allows for students to highlight text on a website, and add annotations. These highlights and annotations are also added to the library. All members of the library can access the bookmarks, highlights and annotations. In addition they can add comments, and 'like' bookmarks. The highlighter is especially useful as it supports note-taking methods.

Diigo offers browser tools that make this process almost painless. It also offers many other features such as tag clouds, library searches, screen captures, read-it-later services, and web-based notes.

I love Diigo, but the amount of time needed for set-up and familiarisation means that it is best suited for long reseach tasks.

Pros: Many features; extensive collaboration; highlighting supports note taking techniques, tagging
Cons: A bit of set-up is required; students require accounts; familiarisation required

Pearltrees

Pearltrees is an interesting take on social book-marking. When you bookmark in Pearltrees you place those bookmarks in within a tree diagram. This allows you to categorise your bookmarks as you go along.

The nature of Pearltrees puts it somewhere between brainstorming and researching. These features, combined with it's collaboration ability, provides many classroom opportunities. For example, a new pearl could be created and shared with the class for a brainstorming storming session. Students can then assess the brainstorming results to distil a group of topics to research. Then the students can then research the topics adding the bookmarks to the Pearltree.

You can access Pearltrees with a Google, Facebook, or Twitter account, or you can create a Pearltrees account. Pearltrees has a browser tool (Pearler) that makes it easier to add pearls to your tree. Pearls are really easy to move around and copy.

Peartrees looks great and really helps students visualise relationships. It could work well for general research and for tasks where categorising is important.

Pros: Visually appealing; collaborative; categorising
Cons: A bit of set-up is required; students require accounts; familiarisation required; no highlighting

Padlet

Padlet (formerly Wallwisher) may be the least powerful of these tools, but it makes up for that in it's ease of use and speed of set-up. Padlet is essentially an online post-it board where people can add virtual post-it notes.

It is brilliant for a quick brainstorm, but it's ability to post URLs (web links) to it means that it can also be used to research. When you add a URL to the wall, Padlet embeds the relevant info from that page and adds it to the post-it.

Padlet doesn't have any of the more powerful features, and the wall can get quite crowded, so it's really not suited for any serious research. Never-the-less, you can go from having nothing to have student collaboratively posting research on-line in less than an minute. Just go to padlet, click create wall, type a title, and give the students the URL for the page.

Padlet doesn't require you to have an account to create or use walls, although having an account makes sure you never loose your walls. Log in using your Google account, or create a Padlet account. The best thing is, students will not need an account, you just give them the URL.

Padlet is a gem for quick research, or to expand on that 'techable moment'.

Pros: Realtime collaborative; quick; no accounts required
Cons: Few features; gets crowded

Lesson: Researching Sacred Stories

Details

Subject: Religion and Ethics
Grade: 11
Tools: Diigo
Focus Question: What are some examples of sacred stories?

The Lesson

The class is ready to prepare for their assessment. The students will be rewriting a sacred story into a modern day equivalent. The first step of that process is finding a story to rewrite, and that is the purpose of this lesson.

Previously we have used Diigo, so all the students have an account. If you haven't used Diigo, students can sign in using Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Yahoo accounts, or just create a stand alone Diigo account. Diigo also offers teacher accounts which assist in managing your class groups.

I created a Diigo group called Sacred Stories and provided the students with the URL. Once I approved their application the students then started book marking examples of sacred stories they found on the web.

Some of the sites bookmarked were a little off the mark. These sites were analysing sacred stories, or talking about the importance of sacred stories, rather than the stories themselves. To address this, I 'liked' all the stories that would be appropriate for the assignment.

Follow Up

The students now have to choose a story from all the 'liked' bookmarks to rewrite.